For readers of Michael Lewis comes an engrossing tale of the country’s magnificent rise and fall, intertwined using the story of Brazil’s wealthiest citizen, Eike Batista-a universal story of hubris and tragedy that uncovers the deeper meaning of this era of billionaires.

NAMED ONE OF THE BETTER BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE FINANCIAL TIMES

When Bloomberg Information invited the young American journalist Alex Cuadros to survey on Brazil’s rising course of billionaires at the height of the historic Brazilian about Brazillionaires: Prosperity, Power, Decadence, and Wish within an American Country growth, he was poised to protect two of the biggest business tales of our period: the way the giants from the developing globe were triumphantly acquiring their place at the center of global capitalism, and how wealth inequality was changing societies just about everywhere. The billionaires of Brazil and their substantial fortunes resided towards the top of their country’s financial pyramid, and whether they quietly accumulated excellent power or extravagantly displayed their decadence, they formed a powerful microcosm from the world’s richest .001 percent.

Eike Batista, a flamboyant and charismatic evangelist for the country’s brand-new gospel of wealth, epitomized much of this rarefied sphere: In 2012, Batista rated as the eighth-richest person in the globe, was well-known for his relationship to a beauty queen, and was a fixture in the Brazilian press. His continuously repeated ambition was to be the world’s richest man and to provide Brazil along with him to the top.

But by 2015, Batista was bankrupt, his kid Thor have been indicted for manslaughter, and Brazil-its chief executive facing impeachment, its provinces combating an epidemic, and its business and politics class torn apart by scandal-had become a cautionary tale of a country operate aground by its elites.

On the four years Cuadros was for the billionaire beat, he reported on mass media moguls and televangelists, energy barons and shadowy numbers from the years of military dictatorship, soy barons who lived around the outskirts from the Amazon, and new-economy billionaires spinning money from speculation. He learned just how deeply each of them reached into Brazilian existence. They kept sway within the overall economy, government, media, and stewardship of the environment; they identified the spiritual fates and populated the imaginations of their countrymen. Cuadros’s zealous confirming takes us from penthouses to courtrooms, from favelas to extravagant artwork fairs, from scenes of unimaginable prosperity to desperate, massive road protests. Within a business narrative that deftly points out and dramatizes the volatility of the global overall economy, Cuadros gives us literary journalism with a grand sweep.

Praise for Brazillionaires

“A wild, richly reported tale about Brazil’s recent economic rise and fall, plus some of the largest, most colorful personas running a business in Brazil who will have a global reach . . Cuadros’s story really takes off when he targets Eike Batista, an over-the-top one-time billionaire who became the country’s commercial mascot, and then go bankrupt inside a dramatic unraveling.”-Andrew Ross Sorkin, the brand new York Times

“With this excellent book [Cuadros] has managed to use billionaires to illuminate the lives of both rich and poor Brazilians, and those in between.”-The Economist

“Brazillionaires [is] journalist Alex Cuadros’s compelling tale of Brazil’s superrich, which deftly weaves lurid cleaning soap opera with large finance and outrageous political skullduggery. . . . If Brazil sometimes comes across being a circus with this compelling, thoroughly researched accounts, for the reason that it could be just that.”-The Wall Street Journal